


You are the best thing that's ever been mine

by detectivesantiagostyle



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Jake in prison, Jake likes Taylor Swift songs, One Shot, Post S4 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 13:14:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11253687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivesantiagostyle/pseuds/detectivesantiagostyle
Summary: And, of course, she’s absolutely head-over-heels delighted to see him smile and laugh, even if it’s only for a few seconds, but she’s also devastatingly heartbroken because Jake’s smile and Jake’s laugh don’t belong in that cold, brutal place, they belong at the nine-nine or at home with her. And, although if anyone were ever to ask she’d 100% deny it, she’s a tiny tiny bit pissed off at what it was that finally made him crack a real smile.





	You are the best thing that's ever been mine

It took Detective Amy Santiago just under ten minutes on her first day at the 99th Precinct to learn three things about her new partner, Detective Jake Peralta. One, he was devastatingly disorganised, two, he was sure he was Brooklyn’s best detective (it took her two weeks to begrudgingly begin to agree) and three, he adored Taylor Swift. Yes, adored. Not tolerated, not enjoyed, not secretly sang in the shower, but adored. Like most things with Jake, she rolled her eyes and assumed he would eventually grow out of it.

Many years later Jake was slightly more organised, slightly more humble, but still utterly infatuated with Taylor Swift. A lot had changed in the years in between – Amy and Jake had travelled from reluctant partners to successful partners, and eventually from friends to so much more. Jake had grown and developed in ways Amy couldn’t have predicted: putting others first, relying on his team, expressing his feelings honestly…but he still loved Taylor Swift and Amy had given up hope on ever shifting him. So she smiled and rolled her eyes and sang along to Fearless in the car and bought him concert tickets for his birthday and accepted that loving the only thirty-something male in the queue for 1989 was just part of her life now. 

Besides, Amy had bigger problems now. There’s something about seeing the love of your life and one of your best friends framed for crimes they didn’t commit and sentenced to 15 years in prison that makes everything else fade away. And it hurts. It hurts more than she ever thought anything could. It hurts when she can’t quite crack a difficult case and Jake isn’t sitting opposite her, smirking as if it’s the easiest puzzle imaginable. It hurts when she comes home after a long day to an empty apartment and sees the piled-up cardboard boxes of Jake’s possessions which he never got the chance to unpack. It hurts when she visits him and barely recognises the shell of a man sat in front of her, with a smile that never quite reaches his eyes and a laugh that sounds like someone who hasn’t quite mastered their Jake Peralta impression. 

One evening it all just gets too much. Another dead end on a possible lead against Hawkins, a frustrating case she just can’t seem to close, a visit to Jake that seems too long and yet not nearly long enough at the same time. On one hand, the second she enters that hideous building Amy can’t wait to leave. She hates it – the grim efficiency of the guards, the bleak sterility of their surroundings, the dead look in Jake’s eyes and the hollowed cheeks that give away how little he’s coping. But at the same time, these visits are the highlights of her week – seeing Jake alive, breathing, real, means everything to Amy and having to walk away and leave him there kills her. The second Amy gets home the floodgates break and she sobs, not quite sure why. It wasn’t a bad visit – there’s been plenty of those over the last few months. They’ve had angry visits where, without meaning to, they’ve turned on each other, just needing to unleash some frustration but bitterly regretting it after. There’s also been awkward visits – times where Amy and Jake have been so overwhelmed by everything they feel and think that nothing comes out and they sit in silence, or worse, chat about meaningless rubbish until she has to come home and scream. But this was none of those – and that’s the worst bit. It was a good visit, a visit where, for the first time in far too long, Jake smiled, like really truly smiled, and even (dare she say) giggled and Amy felt her heart break all over again. 

And, of course, she’s absolutely head-over-heels delighted to see him smile and laugh, even if it’s only for a few seconds, but she’s also devastatingly heartbroken because Jake’s smile and Jake’s laugh don’t belong in that cold, brutal place, they belong at the nine-nine or at home with her. And, although if anyone were ever to ask she’d 100% deny it, she’s a tiny tiny bit pissed off at what it was that finally made him crack a real smile. It wasn’t the overwhelming joy of seeing the love of his life walk through the door, it wasn’t hearing her tell him that she loved him and would never stop fighting, it wasn’t even adorable stories about baby Enigma Linetti (who was objectively the cutest baby in the entire world). The one thing that finally reached her ridiculous, mid-thirties, NYPD detective boyfriend was the fact that Amy accidentally quoted a Taylor Swift lyric in the middle of a sentence. Seriously. 

They’d been discussing Jake and Rosa’s case, poring over the details (yet again), when Amy had been in the middle of speaking, telling Jake that it didn’t matter what anyone said because “you’re still an innocent-” and that’s all it took. He started to laugh, scaring the hell out of Amy who genuinely started to worry that he’d finally lost his mind and was becoming hysterical and then broke into song, finishing with a delightful rendition of the chorus of Innocent before laughing again and demanding that Amy pay up. It took her a minute to remember – to rewind past the last few months, back to when life seemed simple and her biggest concern of the week was that Jake just would not stop speaking in Taylor Swift lyrics. She remembered that week – a week which began with Jake declaring that the answers to all of life’s questions could be found in Taylor Swift lyrics and that he never needed to say anything else, ever again. It had been a long, long week and by the end she was severely tempted to throw the Red cd case at his head and change her locks. Instead it ended with a bet (as most disagreements did) which involved Amy vowing that she would never, ever, speak in Taylor Swift lyrics. It’s been so long and so much has happened that she can’t even remember what they actually bet but right now that’s not what matters. All that matters is that Amy desperately missed that smile and that laugh and the trademark Jake Peralta smug ‘i-just-won-a-bet look that made her want to kiss him and stab him simultaneously. Don’t get her wrong, Amy is competitive and hates losing (having six brothers does that to a girl) but more than anything she wants to see that smile and know that wherever Jake is, whatever is happening to him, he knows that she would do anything for him. Including speaking in Taylor Swift lyrics. 

An hour and a lot of googling later, Amy is ready. Although she visits Jake as often as possible in prison, she still writes to him often, knowing how much having something physical to hold onto means to him. Beside her laptop are a dozen photographs, each with something written in Amy’s neat handwriting on the back. 

A photo of them at Terry’s daughter Ava’s christening when Amy wore her (and Jake’s) favourite red dress with the caption "I got that red lip, classic thing that you like."

Another photo taken during the salsa dancing class they took on their cruise with "not much for dancing, but for you I did."

One with the entire nine-nine squad smiling at the camera and the words "welcome to New York, it’s been waiting for you"

And Amy’s particular favourite – the slightly terrifying photo of her and Jake which commemorated their victory over the Vulture, on which she wrote (with a smile) "I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you."

And that night, for the first night in a long time, Amy sleeps soundly. Things aren’t fixed yet, not by a long shot, but she knows that until they can crack the case, until they can get him home, at least she can be sure that he’s going to smile. And for now, that’s enough.


End file.
